A global positioning system of satellites (“GPS”) enables the tracking of objects on the surface of the earth through the use of satellites and receivers. In particular, the orbiting satellites of the GPS system each contain transmitters that send out radio frequency signals. GPS uses a pseudo-random data stream encoded on each satellite's carrier frequency. The receiver is synchronized with the data stream by matching an identical pseudo-random data stream with the data stream received from the satellite to give the distance to that satellite at the speed of light that the radio signal traveled. The receiver then triangulates its position using three or more satellites and by knowing where the satellites are by way of their particular data.
Stated another way, a GPS receiver receives tracking information from various GPS satellites via a GPS antenna. That information is transmitted in digital form from the receiver to a microprocessor that then makes the foregoing calculations. The information includes longitude, latitude, heading, velocity, time and elevation. The data can be processed and formatted as a data packet and immediately displayed, transmitted or stored in EEPROM until requested. Such GPS location-based information has enabled persons or vehicles equipped with GPS devices to be located, to locate their own positions, and/or to locate the best navigational paths to their destination with a great deal of accuracy.
Moreover, pursuant to recent federal emergency 911 legislation, cellular service providers must employ technology capable of locating the cellular phone within a certain distance range. This legislation was triggered by the fact that oftentimes when 911 calls were placed from a cellular phone moving away from the site of an emergency, by the time that the position of the caller was estimated using the then current technology, and by the time that the emergency vehicles were dispatched in response thereto, the caller may have traveled a significant distance from the site of the emergency. Hence, valuable time was often lost by the emergency vehicles in attempting to locate the parties in need of assistance. The ubiquitous nature of such technology enabling the determination of the accurate geographic location of a mobile user has made it feasible to provide location-based information to the mobile user while the user is literally in transit.
While other systems have attempted to use such GPS position information to provide location-based information, such as advertisements or coupons for local businesses, one shortcoming with the current systems is that they provide information or offers that are only of a general interest. Accordingly, they often target a large number of people with the hopes that a certain percentage of the recipients will favorably respond, as opposed to serving the particular, more exacting preferences of a specific recipient. An example of such general public messages is a broadcast message, or a wireless E-mail message or a cellular call to anyone within a certain geographical radius of a fast-food merchant that offers a reduced price offer for a limited time. Such general interest, location-based messages run the significant risk of annoying a recipient that is not interested in the messages or offers. As a result, the message may either be ignored by the recipient or serve to create a negative opinion about the merchant with respect to future purchasing decisions. Use of such general messages may also serve to create a negative opinion about the service provider as well. Likewise, other location-based information providers such as Vindigo and Go2 function much like mobile “Yellow Page” directories in response to specific requests for particular types of business in a certain locality by the traveler. However, such services are typically only provided on a traveler-initiated basis prompted by a specific request.
Other services like On-Star® provide location-based information in response to traveler-initiated requests related to roadside assistance, security or other such traveler support services. Other systems such as Lojac® have monitored or tracked the movement of specific assets such as vehicles—and reported the location of the vehicle to the police or owner when stolen. However, none of these location-based information providers are believed to specifically tailor such attribute-based and location-based information to the specific expressed profile or preferences of the mobile traveler that will receive such information.
Other systems have sought to use purchasing interest profiles of the user. For example, the system for providing navigational services of Lee et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,374,177 contains user profile databases, billing information and a purchasing interest profile. Accordingly, information in advertising databases can be compared against a user's purchasing interest profile through an adaptive profiler, so that advertisements inserted into personalized digital broadcasts mesh with that user's past buying history. Likewise, the prior system of Adaptive Personalization provided an adaptive recommendation engine that analyzed the information that individual users accessed on the mobile devices. Based on the accessed information, the recommendation engine prioritized information for mobile applications provided to that user. A significant problem with these systems is that they rely at most on an inferred or extrapolated preference of the user based on prior behavior or patterns of behavior, rather than explicitly asking the user for preferences. Accordingly, such systems do not address situations wherein the preferences of the user change or where the user has not previously been interested in a particular service or good.
These systems also do not provide a system that is both location-based and preference-based to provide information to a mobile user or consumer by matching the preferences of the person, place or thing (e.g., a merchant) and the user, so as to target a user based on a stated, rather than interpreted, preference. Furthermore, these systems do not allow the merchant or other entity to reach users at a time and place when they are most likely to purchase its goods and/or services.
Additionally, because of the mobility of individuals today and the number of different businesses and entities that provides goods and/or services, there is a need to obtain pertinent information in a timely fashion to allow the user or consumer to be aware of the available options in a local area that meet his or her preferences. Typically, individuals rely on word of mouth from friends or carry guidebooks for a particular region. However, both of these options have problems. As for word of mouth, people have different tastes and opinions. Accordingly, there is no guarantee that an individual will like the same things as his or her friends. Furthermore, by limiting the options to only one or two choices, the users are missing out on opportunities to try places, etc. that meet their specific preferences. Guidebooks, on the other hand, provide information on more places; however, guidebooks must be carried around by individuals and do not describe all of the places within a particular region. Additionally, guidebooks do not provide up-to-date information so there is no guarantee that the information contained in the guidebook is accurate. Guidebooks also do not provide an easy way to determine which places are within a desired range from the user's current location.
Therefore, there is a need to produce and offer a dual-preference matching system and method that provides a system that is both location-based and preference-based to allow for a user to obtain information about those persons, places and things that match the user's preferences and are within a prescribed range.